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Er, I certainly didn't state "there IS ice under there". I just said that this finding is perfectly consistent with millions or billions of tons of ice being in the region regardless. (BTW the figure I saw in a more recent article was that there might be as much as 6 billion tons of water at the lunar poles.)

You, on the the other hand, stated that this meant that there weren't even "1,000s of tons" of water, which is completely incorrect. See the difference?

This is a good article about the initial discovery.

Here is a analysis of the various reasons that an earlier attempt (impact and look for water vapor spectral lines) might not have detected measurable water.

This article includes more analysis, and includes this pithy quote:

"The results of the most detailed radar study to date of the moon's shadowy poles don't mean the moon is bone-dry."

Also:

"Prospector found elevated levels of hydrogen -- a component of water -- around the moon's poles, with the highest readings in the perpetually shaded craters. But the evidence for ice was indirect."

Hope that helped!

Er, I certainly didn't state "there IS ice under there". I just said that this finding is perfectly consistent with millions or billions of tons of ice being in the region regardless. (BTW the figure I saw in a more recent article was that there might be as much as 6 billion tons of water at the lunar poles.)

You, on the the other hand, stated that this meant that there weren't even "1,000s of tons" of water, which is completely incorrect. See the difference?

This is a good article about the initial discovery.

Here is a analysis of the various reasons that an earlier attempt (impact and look for water vapor spectral lines) might not have detected measurable water.

This article includes more analysis, and includes this pithy quote:

"The results of the most detailed radar study to date of the moon's shadowy poles don't mean the moon is bone-dry."

Also:

"Prospector found elevated levels of hydrogen -- a component of water -- around the moon's poles, with the highest readings in the perpetually shaded craters. But the evidence for ice was indirect."

Hope that helped!

I remember something about there being Helium-3 in abundance on the moon. Space.com has a nice article about it and scientists are already at work making it into a usable energy source.

Space.com, Spacedaily.com, and some more from Google.

Excerpts:

Not everyone is ready to hook up to Criswell's lunar power supply, however.

"My own feeling is that he may well be right, but the idea is downstream," said Bryan Erb, president of the Sunsat Energy Council, based in Houston, Texas. The group backs a first-things-first approach, namely the building of satellite power stations in Earth orbit.

"It takes a big investment to get back to the moon," Erb said. "I just don't see a graceful migration path to get to a lunar power system without a massive up-front investment," he said.

Taking a wait-and-see attitude is Paul Werbos, program director for control networks and computational intelligence at the National Science Foundation. He recently co-sponsored with NASA a workshop that looked over the Criswell plan, among other space-research issues.

Werbos said that a critical aspect of Criswell's idea is use of tele-autonomy, that is, how to coordinate human beings on Earth with on-the-job robots stationed on the moon.

"That's the key concept in my mind in order to build any kind of large-scale space power system -- on the Earth or on the moon," he said. "How do you get robots smart enough to do their job under a kind of loose supervision arrangement?"

Now, lest this be completely off-topic, there's some reasonably educated speculation that Stonehenge could have been used as an astronomical calendar for both lunar and solar observations. Apparently, the lunar calculations are pretty accurate, for people without slide rules. (Not necesssarily the druids, although they are firmly linked to Stonehenge in popular imagination.)

As I said at first: don't know where you read the story, but a mis-timed eclipse isn't the most likely culprit for the downfall of the early Celts (or the druids.) We have Julius Caesar to thank for that one. ;)

As the parent post said.

Helium 3

My favorite quote:

"The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 25 tons could supply the entire United States' energy needs for a year"

It's rarely found on Earth, and requires more energy than it is worth to make. Sounds like a good reason for a moon base to me.

Well besides setting a huge "laser" pointed towards Earth can calling the whole thing a "deathstar".

That article has images which fortell a much more terrifying fate for our sun: GIANT FRIGGIN' SPACE SPIDERS

Space.com's other cams have some really interesting pictures. The animated one is especially cool because you can see all the activity that has been going on lately. It is over 11MB to load though, so if you aren't on dial up you'd better just forget about it.

No, sunspots are systems far larger than and completely unaffected by any normal infalling material. Here's a good Q&A at space.com covering the flares in general.

there's actually a webcam pointed at the sun... i'ts updated every 4 hours and can be found here.

According to Space.com: The image is generated by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, which sits partway between Earth and the Sun.

we've been monitoring since the 1970's... I would like to think the measurements in the 70s were accurate, but you never know... here's an interesting page with pictures and a graph of the solar cycle...

Its strange how all of a sudden there are many reports of strong flares... Just as the Space Weather forecasting program comes up for budget renewal.

I *still* havent seen any of the promised Aurora Borealis [space.com] from previous flares.
It's been a decade since last I saw any.

Space.com covered. it yesterday, with an update today. The bottom of the article has two cool animated gif's that showed the X-ray sensor blinded after the flare, and the subsequent coronal mass that was ejected.

iirc, the way we make out how old the universe is, is by calculating with the temperature of "thin air", or the vacuum of space. This temperature has been going down ever since Big Bang, and is now at something like -272 Celsius degrees.

this article will prolly give you some more info on how we calculate the age of the universe...

I understand what you are saying - and I hate to nitpick (but I guess I am)...

Here is a better picture of the subject.

Termination shock refers to the point where the solar wind first meets interstellar plasma. It is the innermost edge where the two mix.

The heliopause marks the region where the solar wind no longer exists and interstellar plasma rules. It represents the outmost boundary of our solar system.

Just trying to be accurate...

Some more interesting stuff there too, appearantly the scientists do not agree yet about the meaning of the latest incoming data.

actually, kinda... it's the sound of a deep bass, which the human ear can't hear... they found out because they noticed it shifted planets and stars along it's wave... check it out here: space.com

Ozone depletion caused by CFC's?
I'm glad you brought that up, because it's simply not true..
<quote>
Persistent high-altitude clouds of nitric-acid crystals are responsible for depleting ozone levels in the Arctic atmosphere, scientists said Tuesday.
Data from NASA satellites, aircraft and balloons -- along with aircraft and ground observations from other nations -- show that the ozone-gobbling clouds are caused by abnormally cold temperatures in the Arctic that last for an unusually long time.
<quote>

Over at space.com I noticed this interesting article. Sun's Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming. The upshot is that the sun seems to emitting 0.05% more energy per decade since the 1970s. My quick calculation suggests that this rise in energy flux should create about a 0.15 degree C change in temperatures each decade (but that rise will probably lag as oceans equilibrate).

Its not surprising the the Sun might be causing this. After all, oscillations is solar output are probably responsible for Greenland being green around 1000 AD and may also end up being responsible for Greenland being green in the future.

"This one saturated the X-ray detectors on the NOAA's GOES satellites that monitor the Sun," Brekke said. "The jury is therefore out on the definitive classification of the flare."

Holy cow! I was looking at the SOHO animation linked from here and noticed that the last flare occurs after the story was posted on space.com and seems headed directly for us. This seems to confirm it.

Between good old Sol shooting off flares and Jupiter's mystery spot, I'm thinking I might want to be somewhere else while the Monolith eats Jupiter and the Sun explodes.

Sigh, guess I'll just have to buy better sunscreen.

From the site: Aurora Cam, which "shows the current extent and position of auroral activity in the northern hemisphere, based on measurements taken during the most recent polar pass of the NOAA POES satellite."

Does this recent solar activity make any of you feel uneasy? I mean... is it time for Bruce Willis to suit up again and save the planet? Nine X-class solar flares... eeeek. That has to be bad.

according to this page

Well it isn't MSNBC, but space.com has a story with that exact headline (thank you google news): Space Storm Hits, Earth Survives

Something that should be mentioned - Congress is considering dropping funding entirely for the Space Environment Center. This is the government organization that comes up with the space "weather forcasts". We may not be facing major problems because of this now, but that's because the power centers and satelite providers have been able to prepare for the solar storm. More information here.

The Sun today unleashed what appears to be the third most powerful flare in recorded history, a storm of charged particles that could hit Earth mid-day Wednesday with more effect than any since 1989, when an entire Canadian province had its power knocked out.

Depending on the storm's magnetic orientation, it could set off a dramatic display of colorful northern lights well into mid-latitudes of the United States and Europe.

Meanwhile, satellite operators and power grid managers are preparing to endure a potentially damaging event. And astronauts aboard the International Space Station have taken cover from heavier radiation sent out by the flare. They are not expected to be in any serious danger.

Kicked up at 6 a.m. EST (1100 UT) today, the major solar outburst comes on the heels of four other flares late last week and over the weekend. All were considered fairly severe, but the latest eruption makes the others seem like solar sneezes.

Today's blast is classified as an X17, where X denotes a major flare and larger numbers are stronger. That compares to two flare-ups over the weekend that were rated less than X2.

"The flare today may be the third strongest X-flare on record," said Paal Brekke, deputy project scientist for the SOHO spacecraft, which first spotted the event.

A slightly stronger flare on April 2, 2001 was not pointed at Earth. Today's storm is headed directly at us and could generate fantastic colorful lights in the atmosphere, known as aurora. The storm associated with the flare is called a coronal mass ejection, an expanding bubble of charged particles that race outward.

That would put the arrival at about Noon EST Wednesday (1700 UT).

"That's when it starts," Kunches said. But the storm will blow through over several hours, he said, and won't be done for up to two days.

"We may be in for some great aurora," Brekke said.

look here

This solare flare article on Space.Com has some interesting info on how the ISS caretaker crew will deal with this.

This solare flare article on Space.Com has some interesting info on how the ISS caretaker crew will deal with this.

The Sun today unleashed what appears to be the third most powerful flare in recorded history, a storm of charged particles that could hit Earth mid-day Wednesday with more effect than any since 1989, when an entire Canadian province had its power knocked out.

Depending on the storm's magnetic orientation, it could set off a dramatic display of colorful northern lights well into mid-latitudes of the United States and Europe.

Meanwhile, satellite operators and power grid managers are preparing to endure a potentially damaging event. And astronauts aboard the International Space Station have taken cover from heavier radiation sent out by the flare. They are not expected to be in any serious danger.

Kicked up at 6 a.m. EST (1100 UT) today, the major solar outburst comes on the heels of four other flares late last week and over the weekend. All were considered fairly severe, but the latest eruption makes the others seem like solar sneezes.

Today's blast is classified as an X17, where X denotes a major flare and larger numbers are stronger. That compares to two flare-ups over the weekend that were rated less than X2.

"The flare today may be the third strongest X-flare on record," said Paal Brekke, deputy project scientist for the SOHO spacecraft, which first spotted the event.

A slightly stronger flare on April 2, 2001 was not pointed at Earth. Today's storm is headed directly at us and could generate fantastic colorful lights in the atmosphere, known as aurora. The storm associated with the flare is called a coronal mass ejection, an expanding bubble of charged particles that race outward.

Drug detection will be just first (commercial?) use of Terahertz rays..
Actually T-Rays are so useful your mind would explode if you even... err.. ok here it goes..
Different kinds of molecules absorb T-Rays of different frequencies.. you could tweak t-rays to actually pass right through metal or whatever you wished. First use of T-Rays was planned to replace X-Rays (which aren't really healthy). They were also meant to be used by airplanes. With T-Rays you could see through fog, clouds,.. anything.. even clothes.
However, there's big problem with creating a camera that detects T-Rays..

This is a true revolution..

link 1
link 2
link 3

It's "Be EXCELLENT to each other."

And you missed something twice as big as you can imagine.

"The black spot, accompanied by at least one plume, can be seen not far away from the Great Red Spot"

Since the Gread Red Spot is twice the size of earth and I quickly estimate you could fit about two of the Red Spots between it and the black oddity, the distance between them is roughly four times the diameter of Earth. That's something like 50000 kilometers.

Not far, indeed...

What kind of Slashdot post does not include a link to the article? What was the original submitter thinking, that if they copied and pasted the first paragraph, everyone would be happy? How am I supposed to tell other posters "RTFA" if there is no link to the article?

This would be acceptable if they were worried about a slashdotting, but this is Space.com.

or did anybody else notice that Jupiter's north pole is pointing down in these photos. Oh, yeah, and look at this page for some photos of dark spots caused by comet Shoemaker-Levi 9.

The link to the actual article.

There is also a follow up on space.com for those who don't wish to register with the washington post site.

One small bump from a free-floating piece of space junk will alter the path of the beam by quite a bit, assuming it doesn't rip right through the weapon. Even an error of 1/1000 of a degree with a laser at 180km in the sky (the altitude of most spy sats, I think) misses the mark by over 3 meters. Assuming a circular area of error, that's almost 30 square meters! That doesn't seem any more precise than an "ordinary" smart bomb.

Someone check my math, please. My degree is actually in history(!) and not Math/Physics/Astronomy/Engineering.

The robots are being readied at a secret underground facility. However, we're still in contract negotiations with the Japanese Self-Defense Force for an exchange program to train big-eyed schoolgirls with blue hair to fly them.

US space warfare giant robot command staff are currently being equipped with billowing trenchcoats, small round mirrored glasses, and training in issuing curt commands with a gruff voice, in order to be able to properly coordinate giant robot space defense activity.

In addition, space war giant robot deployment is currently hampered by the fact that Warner Brothers "borrowed" the only working giant robot rail gun laser rifle prototype to make Eraser, and have not returned the US space awr giant robot secret development lab staff's phone calls asking them to return it.

A second giant space war robot laser rifle design was realized, it was thought, in time for giant robot reaction to the new commie Chinese space menace, but plans were shelved when suspicions arose that the new prototype was mistakenly sold as surplus and is currently being used as a backup power generator for the town of Provo, Utah. A third prototype could not be built, as the remaining supplies of Polonium-210, which powers the device, appear to have been accidentally taken home by an employee of the power plant supplying the isotope. Authorities are requesting information on an overweight balding man with yellow skin, who was last seen carrying a donut.

In short, my fellow citizens, we are doomed. The red menace has put a man into space. Our Asiatic foes are well on their way to winning the race to provide effective space-based Chinese food delivery. We _must_ increase funding to the United States Giant Space War Robot Defense Agency, or risk a national catastrophy.

"Steve Salter, an aircraft engineer in the UK, suggested the contrail might have come from the Concorde, whose flight timing would have put it in the vicinity at the right time. Others deduced the same.

'I think the most likely explanation is that this is an unusual view of the Concorde's contrail,' the APOD's Bonnell told SPACE.com late last week."

"Steve Salter, an aircraft engineer in the UK, suggested the contrail might have come from the Concorde, whose flight timing would have put it in the vicinity at the right time. Others deduced the same.

'I think the most likely explanation is that this is an unusual view of the Concorde's contrail,' the APOD's Bonnell told SPACE.com late last week."

According to the article on space.com, the mission cost 1 billion. To quote, "Yang hurtled around the planet for the rest of Wednesday, making a planned orbit shift in midafternoon and stopping work only to rest and eat Chinese food designed especially for space travel." I for one think 1 billion dollars is well worth it for space chinese food. Along with space icecream, we can now have a complete and balanced space diet. I look forward to the day when the guy on the phone of the local chinese restraunt asks if i want my dumplings to be steamed, panfried, or 'space'.

BTW, (possible spoiler follows) this side story foreshadowed a major plot revelation, in that just about everyone knew that the site was, in a sense, fake, but no one ever talked about the "secret" in public.

"and... velcro ... trace their way back to the Space Race of the 1960s."

Velcro was patented in 1955.
The Invention of VELCRO (R) - George de Mestral


"two taikonauts wondering whether to take down the American flag still found at the Sea of Tranquility"

The SoT flag was placed too close to the lunar module and according to Buzz Aldrin was blasted over on their departure. The other 5 flags were placed farther away from the LM and are almost certainly still upright though.
Group Wants to Protect Apollo Site

Read 1421- The Year China Discovered The World, by Gavin Menzies. This book and it's author have been getting a lot of attention from the archeological community lately 9 see also here, here, here, etc. There's a lot of evidence that suggest that Zhang He's fleet continued east to the americas. Early Western explorers reportedly encountered chinese-speaking peoples in both South and North America.

and I'm sure everybody else wants it too. NORAD has nothing, NASA has nothing, space.com has nothing, and I can't read Chinese.

Like it needs to be said, but if anybody stumbles across that information, totally post it.